be obliged to say, that, on this particular subject, I mean the arguments in favour of your religion, they do not manifest the candour and good sense, which are natural to them, and which they show on every other subject. They pronounce, with con. fidence and vehemence, that Dr. Porteus's charges are all true, and that you cannot make any rational answer to them; at the same time, that several of these gentlemen, to my knowledge. are very little acquainted with the substance of them. In short, they are apt to load your religion and the professors of it, with epithets and imputations too gross and injurious for me to repeat, convinced as I am of their falsehood. I shall not be surprised to hear that some of these imputations have been transmitted to you by the persons in question, as I have declined making my letters the vehicle of them; it is a justice, however, which I owe them, to assure you, Rev. sir, that it is only since they have understood the inference of your arguments to be such as to imply an obligation on them of renouncing their own respective religions, and embracing yours, that they have been so unreasonable and violent. Till this period they appeared to be nearly as liberal and charitable with respect to your communion as to any other. I am, Rev. Sir, &c. JAMES BROWN LETTER XXXII. To JAMES BROWN, Esq. ON THE CHARGES AGAINST THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. DEAR SIR, I SHOULD be guilty of deception were I to disguise the satis faction I derive from your and your friends, near approach to the house of unity and peace, as St. Cyprian calls the Catholic church for such I must judge your situation to be from the tenour of your last letter, by which it seems to me, that your entire reconciliation with this church depends on my refuting Bp. Porteus's objections against it: and yet, dear sir, if I were to insist on the strict rules of reasoning, I might take occasion of complaining of you from the very concessions which afford me so much pleasure. In fact, if you admit that the church of God, is, by his appointment, the interpreter of the entire Word of God, you ought to pay attention to her doctrine on every point of it, and not to the suggestions of Dr. Porteus or your own fancy in opposition to it. Again, if you are convinced that the one, holy, Catholic and apostolical church is the true church of God, you ought to be persuaded that it is utterly impossible she should inculcate idolatry, superstition, or any other wicked ness, and, of course, that those who believe her to be thus guilty are and must be in a fatal error. I have proved from reason, tradition, and holy Scripture, that, as individual Christians cannot of themselves judge with certainty of matters of faith, God has therefore provided them with an unerring guide, in his holy church; and hence that Catholics, as Tertullian and St. Vincent of Lerins emphatically pronounce, cannot strictly and consistently, be required by those who are not Catholics, to vindicate the particular tenets of their belief, either from Scripture or any other authority; it being sufficient for them to show that they hold the doctrine of the true church which all Christians are bound to hear. Nevertheless, as it is my duty, after the example of the apostles, to become all things to all men, 1 Cor. ix. 22, and as we Catholics are conscious of being able to meet our opponents on their own ground, as well as on ours, I am willing, dear sir, for your and your friends' satisfaction, to enter on a brief discussion of the leading points of controversy which are agitated between the Catholics and the Protestants, particularly those of the church of England. I must, however, previously stipulate with you for the following conditions, which I trust you will find perfectly reasonable. 1st. I require that Catholics should be permitted to lay down their own principles, or belief and practice, and, of course, to distinguish between their articles of faith in which they must all agree, and mere scholastic opinions, of which every individual may judge for himself; as, likewise, between the authorized liturgy and discipline of the church and the unauthorized devotions and practices of particular persons. I insist upon this preliminary, because it is the constant practice of your controversialists to dress up a hideous figure, composed of their own misrepresentations, or else of those undefined opinions and unauthorized practices, which they call Popery; and then to amuse their readers or hearers with exposing the deformity of it and pulling it to pieces; and I have the greater right to insist upon this preliminary, because our creeds and professions of faith, the acts of our councils and our approved expositions and Catechisms, containing the principles of our belief and practice, from which no real Catholic in any part of the world can ever depart, are before the public and upon constant sale among booksellers. 2dly. It being a notorious fact that certain individual Christians, or bodies of Christians, have departed from the faith and communion of the church of all nations, under pretence the they had authority for so doing, it is necessary that their alleged authority should be express, and incontrovertible. Thus, for example, if texts of Scripture are brought for this purpose, it is evidently necessary that such texts should be clear in them. selves and not contrasted by any other texts seemingly of an opposite meaning. In like manner, when any doctrine or practice appears to be undeniably sanctioned by a father of the church, for example, of the third or the fourth century, withom an appearance of contradiction from any other father, or ecclesiastical writer, it is unreasonable to affirm that he or his contemporaries were the authors of it, as Protestant divines are in the habit of affirming. On the contrary, it is natural to suppose that such father has taken up this with the other points of his religion from his predecessors, who received them from the apostles. This is the sentiment of that bright luminary St. Augustin, who says, "Whatever is found to be held by the Universal church, and not to have had its beginning in bishops and councils, must be esteemed a tradition from those by whom the church itself was founded."* You judged right in supposing that I have received some letters, containing virulent and gross invectives against the Catholic religion, from certain members of your society. These do not surprise or hurt me, as the writers of them have probably not yet had an opportunity of knowing much more of this religion than what they could collect from fifth of November, and other sermons of the same tendency, and from circulated pamphlets expressly calculated to inflame the population against it and its professors; but what truly surprises and afflicts me is, hat so many other personages in a more elevated rank of life, whose education and studies enable them to form a more just idea of the religious and moral principles of their ancestors, bene. factors, and founders, in short of their acknowledged fathers and saints, should combine to load these fathers and saints with calumnies and misrepresentations which they must know to be utterly false. But, a bad cause must be supported by bad means; they are unfortunately implicated in a revolt against the true church; and not having the courage and self-denial to acknowledge their error and return to her communion, they endeavour to justify their conduct by interposing a black and hideous mask before the fair countenance of this true mother, Christ's spotless spouse. This is so far true, that when, as it often happens, a Protestant is, by dint of argument, forced out of his errors and * Lib. ii. De Bapt. prejudices against the true religion, if he be pressed to embrace it, and wants grace to do it, he is sure to fly back to those very calumnies and misrepresentations which he had before renounced. The fact is, he must fight with these, or yield himself unarmed to his Catholic opponent. That you and your friends may not think me, dear sir, to have complained without just cause of the publications and sermons of the respectable characters I have alluded to, I must inform you that I have now lying before me a volume called Good Advice to the Pulpits, consisting of the foulest and most inalignant falsehood against the Catholic religion and its professors, which tongue or pen can express, or the most envenomed heart conceive. It was collected from the sermons and treatises of prelates and dignitaries, by that able and faithful writer, the Rev. John Gother, soon after the gall of calumnious ink had been mixed up with the blood of slaughtered Catholics; a score of whom were executed as traitors for a pretended plot to murder their friend and proselyte, Charles II; a plot which was hatched by men who themselves were soon after convicted of a real assassination plot against the king. At that time, the parliaments were so blinded as repeatedly to vote the reality of the plot in question: hence it is easy to judge with what sort of language the pulpits would resound against the poor devoted Catholics at that period. But without quoting from former records, I need only refer to a few of the publications of the present day to justify my complaint To begin with some of the numberless slanders contained in the No Popery Tract of the bishop of London, Dr. Porteus: he charges Catholics with "senseless idolatry to the infinite scandal of religion;"* with trying to make the ignorant think that indulgences deliver the dead from hell;" and that by means of "zeal for holy church, the worst man may be secured from future misery :"‡ and the bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Halifax, charges Catholics with "Antichristian idolatry,§ the worship of demons,|| aud idol meditators." He, moreover, maintains it to be the doctrine of the church of Rome, that " pardon for every sin whether committed or designed, may be purchased for money." The bishop of Durham, Dr. Shute Barrington, accuses the.n of idolatry, blasphemy, and sacrilege." The bishop of Landaff, Dr. Watson, impeaches the Catholic priests, martyrologists, and monks, without exception, of the "hypocrisy of + Ibid. p. 53. 66 • Confutation, p. 39, edit. 1796. S Warburton's Lectures. p. 191. ** Ibid. p. 347. + Ibid p 53. + Charge, D. 11 ** Ibid. p. 358 66 66 hars :"* and he lays it down, as the moral doctrine of Ca tholics, that "humility, temperance, justice, the love of God and man, are not laws for all Christians, but only counsels of perfection." He elsewhere says, "that the Popish religion is the Christian religion, is a false position." He has, moreover, adopted and republished the sentiments of some of his other mitred brethren to the same purpose. One of these asserts, that," instead of worshipping God through Christ, they (the Catholics) have substituted the doctrine of demons." They have contrived numberless ways to make a holy life needless, and to assure the most abandoned of salvation, without repentance, provided they will sufficiently pay the priest for absolution."|| They have consecrated murders, &c." "The Papists stick fast in filthy mire-by the affection they bear to other lusts, which their errors are fitted to gratify.' "It is impossible that any sincere person should give an implicit assent to many of their doctrines: but, whoever can practice upon them, can be nothing better than a most shamefully debauched and immoral wretch."tt Another prelate, of later promotion, gives a comprehensive idea of Catholics, where he calls them "Enemies of all law, human and divine."‡‡ If such be the tone of the Episcopal bench, it would be vain to expect more moderation from the candidates for it: but I must contract my quotations in order to proceed to more important matter. One of these, who, while he was content with an inferior digni'y, acted and preached as the friend of Catholics, since he has arrived at the verge of the highest, proclaims "Popery to be idolatry and Antichristianism;" maintaining, as does also the bishop of Durham, that it is "the parent of Atheism, and of that antichristian persecution" (in France) of which it was exclusviely the victim. Another dignitary of the same cathedral, taking up Dr. Sparke's calumny, seriously declares that the Catholics. are Antinomians,|||| which is the distinctive character of the Jumpers, and other rank Calvinists. Finally, the celebrated city preacher, C. De Coetlogon, among similar graces of oratory, pronounces that "Popery is calculated only for the meridian of hell. To say the best of it that can be said, Popery is a most horrid Letter II. to Gibbon. Bishop Watson's Tracts, vol. i. Bishop Benson's Tracts, vol. v. p. 272. T Ibid. p. 232. **Bishop Fowler, vol. vi. p. 386. Ibid. vol. v. Contents. I! Ibid. p 273. ++ Ibid. p. 387. # Dr. Sparke, Bishop of Ely, Concio. ad Synod. 1807. Discourses of Dr. Rennel, dean of Winchester, p. 140, &r. Charge of Dr. Hook, archdeacon, &c. p. 5. &c.. |